Filed under: Features | Tags: andrew bird, bird, bird parker, birdman, bowerbirds, by your side, charlie parker, city of echoes, cranes, Department of Eagles, Doves, earth angel, forever, hotel california, in ear park, jazz at massey hall, like father like son, Lil Wayne, los souls, nightingales, out of true, Pelican, Phoenix, Sheryl Crow, soundtracks for the blind, swans, the birda nd the bee, The Black Crowes, The Byrds, The Dodos, The Eagles, the last broadcast, the penguins, the swimming hour, the yardbirds, Visiter, wolfgang amadeus phoenix, younger than yesterday
Phoenix
Thanksgiving. For years it’s brought people together to feast on turkey. In honor of this joyous American holiday, 20 Watts has decided to elucidate you, fine reader, on the many bands named after a variety of fowl. We bring you our very special Thanksgiving 20, based on artists named after a variety of avian creatures.
So what’s the very best of bird-themed music? 20 Watts’ STAFF has the answer in our tenth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Features | Tags: The Beatles, Neutral Milk Hotel, Jeff Mangum, of Montreal, The Beach Boys, apples in stereo, elf power, In the Aeroplane over the Sea, Circulatory System, new magnetic wonder, on avery island, live at jittery joe's, olivia tremor control, dusk at cubist castle, music from the unrealized film script, the 20, Fun Trick Noisemaker, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, pet sounds, The Zombies, Odessey and Oracle, Big Star, Radio City, Beat Happening, Jamboree, The Gerbils, Are You Sleepy?, Beulah, When Your Heartstrings Break, The Essex Green, Cannibal Sea, the coast is never clear, When the Red King Comes, The Gay Parade, Love It! Love It!, Nana Grizol, Ruth
The Elephant 6 Collective
A record label. A collection of musicians. An ethos. A cult. The Elephant 6 Collective is all that and more. Based in Athens, Ga. (after originating in Denver), and formed by Bill Doss, Will Hart, Jeff Mangum and Robert Schneider, it started out as a way to record and release their psychedelic influenced lo-fi pop. It soon spiraled and transformed, with other artists joining and band members working on each others’ albums. Eventually, it became less of a recording company than a pool of artists who shared a similar style and philosophy about making music. And it was from this pool that some of the greatest artists of the genre’s modern era — Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples in Stereo, of Montreal and The Olivia Tremor Control to name a few — got their start.
So what’s the very best of trip-hop? 20 Watts’ MARC SOLLINGER has the answer in our ninth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Features | Tags: #1, Amon Tobin, Becoming X, Blockhead, Blue Lines, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, DJ Krush, DJ Shadow, DJ Spooky, Dummy, Endtroducing, In/Flux / Hindsight 12", Kid Koala, Making Bones, Massive Attack, Maxinquaye, Mezzanine, Morcheeba, Music by Cavelight, nearly god, Permutation, Portishead, Preemptive Strike, Red Snapper, Skylab, Sneaker Pimps, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Strictly Turntablized, supermodified, tally ho!, Tricky, wagon christ, Who Can You Trust?
The Bristol sound, also known as trip-hop, was born from the British hip-hop and house scenes of the mid-1990s. Artists like Massive Attack, DJ Shadow and Portishead took the hybrid genre and turned it into a hip-hop-influenced electronica that harnessed a fanbase that reached between the Atlantic. The listening experience, likened to a “musical trip,” is one intensely focused on the abstract, atmospheric qualities of the genre. It has grown over the years to encompass turntablism, acid jazz, electro and dance into a hybrid genre that continues to expand into the contemporary hip-hop scene.
So what’s the very best of trip-hop? 20 Watts’ JOHN LUPOSELLO has the answer in our eighth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Emerging Artists, Features, Scene Around Town, XCLUS!VES | Tags: B-Linn, Bears in America, Flying Lotus, folk, folk rock, funk n waffles, hip-hop, Lynrd Skynrd, Mouf, Mouth's Cradle, O Morning Records, Panda Bear, Passion Pit, Riceboy Sleeps, Sarah Aument, Sleepyhead, The Northbound Traveling Minstrel Jug Band
Sarah Aument and the rest of O, Morning Records rocked Funk 'n Waffles on Friday, 11/6
You never know what to expect while stumbling down the stairs of Syracuse’s Funk ‘n Waffles on the night of a show. Acts can alternate between amateurs and professionals, hip-hop and folk-rock. Lucky for the college crowd that O, Morning Records was on the job last night, serving an aesthetically and musically eclectic platter of shoegazing, dancing and hand-clapping.
Sarah Aument, O, Morning’s very first signee, headlined the show with her new band. Before her came stellar performances from Bears in America, Mouth’s Cradle and The Northbound Traveling Minstrel Jug Band. Not many student acts in the Syracuse area can realistically follow The NTMJB, the liveliest of the night and probably the biggest crowd-pleaser. (more…)
Filed under: Features | Tags: R.E.M., Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Closer, Psychocandy, Talking Heads, Daydream Nation, post-punk, The Ramones, Wire, Devo, Gang of Four, The Wipers, Public Image Ltd., The Fall, Essential Logic, The Raincoats, THe Jesus and Mary Chain, White Light/White Heat, More Songs about Buildings and food, marquee moon, pink flag, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, entertainment!, is this real?, Grotesque (After the Gramme), second edition, metal box, porcupine, the kitchen tapes, the ideal copy, fanfare in the garden, faith, speaking in tongues, murmur
In the late-’70s and early-’80s, following hot on the trails of punk rock, a new musical movement developed on both coasts of the Atlantic. The artists and bands associated with it shunned punk’s noise for a more layered, introverted songwriting and instrumentality. The movement brought with it synthesizers, Krautrock influences, as well as a more complex and experimental approach to music-making. In doing so, they set the wheels in motion for the eventual surge in ’80s and ’90s alternative rock. History has labeled this movement post-punk.
So what’s the very best of post-punk? 20 Watts’ CHRIS PARKER has the answer in our seventh 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Emerging Artists, Features, Issue 19, Issue 19 Artists | Tags: Clocks and Calendars, Sammy Awards, Square Studio, Syracuse New Times, White Picket Fence
White Picket Fence are a young band living life and doing what they do best
Take a minute and picture Varsity Pizza on a weeknight. The radio hums in the background. An employee behind the counter systematically wipes down pans. A couple sits quietly in the corner while cooks bustle around the kitchen, shouting light-hearted insults as they work.
And when the Camillus-based band White Picket Fence enter the room, everything somehow becomes brighter, warmer and more pleasant. Such is the charm of the gang of recent high school grads, who promptly pull together their shared pizza order, sit down together like a family and begin cheerfully recounting the story of how they became local legends.
For the women of the band, at least, that story goes back more than 10 years. Frontwoman Elise Miklich has been a vocalist since primary school, close with the band’s guitarist Kelly Clancy since the girls were in second grade. Drummer Garrett Koloski, bassist Ryan Chapman and guitarist Logan Messina joined the girls after they graduated from high school last June – a month that also saw WPF play their first show and release their debut album, Clocks and Calendars. They won a “Best Pop” nod at the Syracuse New Times’ Sammy Awards not long after. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19 | Tags: The Allman Brothers Band, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, jeff buckley, Caution Children, Tundra Toes, Dandy Little Lions, The Nines, Ithaca College, Cornell University, Johnny Dowd, The Burns Sisters, WICB, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pete Panek and the Blue Cats, Junior Wells, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musselwhite, Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Castaways, Felicia's Atmoic Lounge, The Shop, Haunt Bar and Grille, Texas Flood, Dark Star Orchestra, GrassRoots Festival, Donna the Buffalo, Lyle Lovett, Dread Zeppelin, Soul Asylum, Popcorn Youth, Ithaca Underground, Fanclub Collective, Sim Redmond Band, J-san & the Analogue Sons, John Brown's Body, Sixteen Sixteen, Radio the Ape, Kites in Space
Caution Children are one of the many bands that characterize Ithaca sound
Nestled in the foothills of the Finger Lakes, right in the heart of wine country, Ithaca is a community secluded from the rest of the world. There are no major interstates that cut an unsightly swath through its downtown; no passenger trains rumbling across the Cayuga Valley. One could easily assume that if it wasn’t for Cornell University and Ithaca College, Ithaca would have just been another Podunk upstate burg at the edges of the Rust Belt.
Yet this small college city, just over a one-hour drive from Syracuse and a little under five from New York City, is home to one of the country’s most eclectic, powerful, and thriving music scenes.
After all, the ever-elusive “Ithaca Sound” was created here, a fusion of familiar and ethnic music styles, fundamental to the popularity and acceptance of Roots. Acclaimed reggae group John Brown’s Body considers Ithaca home, as do country singer Johnny Dowd and folk singers The Burns Sisters. College-town venue The Nines has been hosting the Blue Monday jam session for over 29 years. And the local award-winning college radio station WICB carries such programming as “Home Brew,” a weekly show dedicated to local music, while graduates at the School of Music at nearby Ithaca College go on to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19, Issue 19 Lofi | Tags: Cassette, demos, lo-fi, tapes, vinyl, Wavves, Woods
Going lo-fi
After all the hype, rants, raves and “Pitchforkery,” I finally took the plunge and caught a Wavves one night at Bowery Ballroom. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wouldn’t say I was a Wavves fan, but I’d heard his latest album and was impressed. So his appearance with Woods and Real Estate was definitely enough to persuade me into a ticket purchase. It was, suffice it to say, a perfect sampling of the lo-fi craze that’s got the blogs in a frenzy and musicians everywhere turning to GarageBand instead of a recording studio, so I dove in.
However, what struck me at the show wasn’t the tape hiss, or hollowed-out vocals or even the rough-shod guitar lines. It was the songcraft. Real Estate and Woods both opened the show with phenomenally impressive sets. The songs were beautiful, removed from the hazy basements that their records call to mind, and thrust into a setting that let them breathe, opening up the full tonality of the guitars and allowing the sheer power of volume to fatten the sound. Woods were especially awesome, with flamethrower solos and equally tender bits (“The Number” may be my favorite song of the year) that made them sound like the pop band they should be seen as. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19 | Tags: Conan the Barbarian, Dave Matthews, Downtown Ithaca Alliance, Ithaca State Theatre, Jim DeGraff, Jimi Hendrix, JImi Hendrix: Live at Monterey, Long John and the Tights, Moosewood, positive jam, Rhiner Festival, Technicolor Trailer Park, The Nines
Jim DeGraff sketches at a Technicolor Trailer Park show
The sound of squeaky wheels and rusted metal screeches gratingly as Jim DeGraff pulls his wagon along the edge of the Chemung Canal Trust Company parking lot. Once red, the wagon has worn to a faded brown from years of abuse. Tattered boxes stacked to capacity with tubes of paint, a jug of Poland Spring water and a canvas roll-up of paintbrushes barely fit into the cart.
Pausing briefly, he lights up a hand-rolled cigarette. Today is the first annual Rhiner Festival, a day of music and historical reenactments in Ithaca’s Waterfront District, and DeGraff is anticipating a lively day of painting and honing his craft.
The self-taught painter and former bouncer has been sketching and painting live concerts for nearly five years, and his hulking, paint-splattered form — with accompanying easel and rusted wagon — has become a common sight at Central New York concerts, especially in the Finger Lake region.
“For me, going to a concert, it’s hard unless I have something to do,” DeGraff said. “If I have a sketchbook with me, it enhances the whole experience. Artwork is like catching a moment.”
Filed under: Features | Tags: Aphex Twin, Fuck Buttons, Hot Chip, MGMT, Passion Pit, The Boredoms
Tarot Sport, the new album from British electronic duo Fuck Buttons, is not for the faint of heart. Buzzes, screeches, bleeps, and other jarring, harsh sounds populate a record on which most of the songs are over nine minutes in length.
Nevertheless, once you get past that initial “ugliness,” this is a gorgeous album. On songs like “The Lisbon Maru” and “Olympians,” the waves of droning synthesizers and discordant tribal drum beats part, to reveal lovely, lavish melodies. These moments are made all the more beautiful by the fact that they only happen towards the end of a song. It’s like how a sunny day is even more dazzling when it’s been proceeded by a week of rain. Tracks like “Flight of the Feathered Serpent” and “Surf Solar” take this even further, by shifting the songs’ harsh beginnings so subtly that the listener doesn’t know where the noise starts and the music begins. These are the songs Sigur Ros would write if Sigur Ros used drumbeats and synthesizers, rather than guitars and orchestras.
– Marc Sollinger
